Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

I just put a new version of the Workshop Module in CVS. This version represents a bit of a milestone. It nows allows students to submit their work directly into the HTML editor as opposed to forcing them to upload an external file. External files are allowed but they are now optional and there can be more than one file attached to each submission.

To give an example, students might be asked to create a presentation on a given subject. Their submission might be a description of the context of the presentation typed into the HTML editor together with one or two attachments. The presentation itself would be one attachment while some students might want to attach a sound track file as well to accompany their presentation. This is now possible with this version of workshop.

I've also gone though a lot of the options and worked out the various types of assignments available here (see the attached file). In doing this and testing quite of few, I've come to the conclusion that this version draws together the Workshop and Exercise modules. The Exercise module was useful to develop various ideas which have found their way now into the Workshop module. The Workshop module can now be used to run an Exercise-like assignment (Assignment type 2 in the attached file). The only difference in practise is that the students are asked to assess their work after they submit it rather than before submitting. Given the new feature of typing work directly into the on-line editor I think it's more sensible anyway to ask the students to do a "post-submission assessment". So I'm thinking of drawing a line in the sand with respect to the Exercise module. It's probably unlikely that I'll put in-line submissions into that module. I would prefer to use the Workshop module more extensively locally (in place of the Exercise module) and concentrate on getting that module more useable.

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

Well, it would be nice to drop two modules (exercise and workshop). The number of options in Workshop is not too bad. It would require a bit of work to simplify the pages when running a simple assignment, I think there's some spurious stuff kicking about. It's basically about grading assessments which does not happen at all when the student doesn't do any assessment (as in a simple assignment).

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

On 15 September I made a post to this forum saying that in my teaching in the upcoming term I would like my students to be able to write their workshop assignment directly in the HTML editor. Immediately several Moodlers contributed to the discussion of user interface issues. 12 days later the feature is implemented in Moodle! And this is by no means the first time this kind of thing happened. I can not understand how some people can even consider to use a commercial VLE. It is virtually certain that I would not have received this kind of response from any of the commercial VLEs but would have had to drop my teaching plans and go back to doing traditional things.

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

The ability to use the html editor is indeed an excellent development. I think Martin may have a point about putting all effort into your module to make it the default assignment module, as it really seems to already have a lot of options.

I was wondering if teachers may use the html editor to make inline comments on the assignments submitted by the students. Such a feature would make me abandon the standard assignment module altogether myself. I need to be able to markup the work students submit.

Another feature it would be nice to see integrated would be an option like the one in the New Assignment module whereby students can see the assessed work of other students immediately after they submit their own work, or perhaps after their own work has been assessed. Such a feature would be very useful in self-paced courses with rolling enrollment and no fixed due dates and would give students a sense they were working together even if students are at different stages at the same time.

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

Hmm, not very happy with "inline comments", allowing the teacher (or students) access to the HTML editor to change the student's (inline) submission. The really reassuring thing about uploading files in an assignment is that they are "frozen" in time. And in the "But I thought I did/said that..." discussions between teacher and student, the "evidence" of what was submitted is cyrstal clear (and uncontaminated ). Allowing the teacher to tinker with the student's submission seems to be a slippery slope to me unless you have a proper tool (with something like versioning) to do the tinkering. Nice though the HTML editor is, it's not the tool for that particular job. If teachers use the Workshop module, in the meanwhile, they will have to make do the comment boxes which come as part of the assessment form.

The second feature you mention is already there, switching on peer assessment shows a student other students' work.

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

Unfortunately, there is no other way to do what I want to do, besides to make in-line comments. I'm teaching a language course. How am I supposed to make detailed corrections (for example, to specific words) to what students submit if I can't make them in-line? And if I can't make them in-line, then the only other practical option is to prepare their homework in Microsoft Word, upload those files, and then I have to download them, open them up, make inline comments to those files and re-upload them (as is now possible with New Assignment). In some types of teaching, there is no way but to allow a teacher to make in-line comments to a student's work. How is an English teacher supposed to correct punctuation, or spelling, or make remarks on a specific sentence? It is very awkward to have to do that in a separate box, and it is a big hassle to have to download and upload 150 essays.

I do agree that students shouldn't have the ability to mess with the files of others, but perhaps the comments made by the teacher could be in a different color from what the student used in their original document. I think we can trust teachers to do that, can't we?

In short, there are teachers who need to make in-line comments. If they aren't given an easy way to do it with the html editor, they will still do it via Microsoft Word, and waste a lot of time in the process. There's no way to stop in-line commenting, but it can be made easier for teachers to do.

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

The ability to make inline comments would be great (I'm a language teacher, too), but I agree with Ray that there should be a proper mark-up tool for that, rather than the richtext editor. Inline commenting has been mentioned here so often that I hope it will become reality, sooner or later.

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

Yes, I certainly agree there's a need. It's also sometimes referred to as "Redlining" (well in one of that word's meanings). Does anyone know if an inline comments feature is coming to the HTML editor anytime soon?

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

You mean like the "track changes" and "comments" feature in Microsoft Word? That would be nice to have but then to some extent that is what a wiki is for.

However, I think the html editor already has a lot of the tools a teacher would want to use for inline comments. Like crossing out text. Like inserting things in different colors. The problem is, as you pointed out, versioning.

How about if the original submission made with the html editor were saved in its original version. A student might want to work on it over time, so they should have the ability to save it and come back to it later. Once they are happy with it, they can then click a button that would notify the teacher the text prepared in the html editor was ready for them to review. When the teacher goes to make inline comments, an exact copy of the original file is presented to them in the html editor, and when they save it with their comments, it is saved as a second, separate file from the original. The teacher could also be given the option to work on it over time, and to click a button to notify the student when they were completely finished with it. When the student logs back in, they are presented with the marked version, with a button that allows them to see their original submission if they so choose.

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

Thinking more about it today, I have realized that using the separate comment boxes without the html editor (or something like it) is also impossible for me, because I will need to use multiple fonts in my feedback. I have configured my html editor to support the fonts I need. Unfortunately, the font for Windows and Mac that I am using, while the same font, has different names on the different systems, which makes it also a problem if I use Microsoft Word to correct assignments, because it won't automatically recognize the different names of the font, but the html editor could. For me, the html editor is the optimal solution for multiple reasons.

You know, perhaps Ray's integration of the html editor could be combined with code from the New Assignment module. That allows teachers to upload a second (or I think even multiple) "feedback" file in addition to the original submission by the student. Perhaps it could be modified so that instead of saving a file, it saves the content of the html editor in a similar way.

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

Yes, I like the idea of working on a copy, that's leaves an audit trail which I think teachers need nowadays. I think the best way to implement it would be as a new "grading strategy". The Grades table in workshop has a grade field and a text field (plus other housekeeping stuff). The in-line submission from the student could be copied into the grade's text field, the teacher works on that and then gives the student's work a simple grade (zero to n). The grade is probably not the most important thing here, it's the in-line comments. It will work if the student re-submits, the teacher has another grade entry for the re-submission and so gets another copy to work on...

Now the current grading strategies are Accumulative, Error banded,Criterion and Rubric. This new one could be called In-line Comments, nothing like calling a spade a spade . How does that sound?

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

Sounds ok to me. But would this mean that a teacher could make in-line comments, as well as give a grade like 90%? My classes are adult education for personal enrichment so I won't be giving "grades" myself, but an ordinary teacher might need the ability to make comments and give a "grade" of some kind as well.

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

Yes, I thinking that an In-line Comments assessment would have an active editor box containing the student's on-line submission followed by a number of labelled assessment elements and a box for general comments. The elements are basically scales (things like Yes/No, a 5 point scale, grade out of 20...) with labels and their own comment boxes. The number of these assessment elements used in an assessment is a workshop option. The scales would be handled in the same way as Accumulative grading does now, just a weighted sum.

You are asking for the option of allowing the number of assesment elements to be zero and for the workshop to be ungraded. I think that should be OK (although the "ungraded" area of the workshop module is somewhat uncharted territory , I'm pretty sure at the moment an ungraded workshop tells the student they've got zero ).

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

The assignment module used to do that with ungraded assignments (displayed a grade of zero) too until I reported it as a bug and Martin fixed the problem. You might want to check how he fixed it. It was bug 1710.

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

I really appreciate all the efforts you have exerted so far on this module. I just have one more question for you-would it be possible to show students their fellow students' work immediately upon submitting their own, not necessarily to assess it themselves, but to simply look at it? This option is available in the "New Assignment" module. For me, it would be nice if they could be shown the version that had the teachers' inline comments, rather than the original submission, but it probably would be best if the teacher were given a choice which to display.

I know this may seem strange to some, but this is actually how hieroglyphs are taught in the classroom. The teacher asks each student to go write their transliteration and translation on the chalkboard for a single sentence, and then critiques what they wrote before the entire class. What I want to do is for students to do all of the translations and transliterations and submit them first, and then gain access to at least a sampling of their fellow students' submissions with my in-line remarks.

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

Ah, if you are looking for an ungraded assignment it would better to avoid having in-line comments as a grading strategy but to have a new option Allow In-line comments. (Hopefully I've just tidied up the Not Graded strategy to avoid all mention of grades on the student pages.)

The Allow In-line comments option would show the teacher (and the student) the on-line submission in the editor as opposed to just displaying the text. The text would be a copy stored in the assessment record (there's a text field called teacherscomment in that record which I think is just about obsolete in the latest versions). And it's actually less work to add a new option to the workshop module than it is to add a new grading strategy .

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

That sounds good, and makes more sense too. The question is, once the teacher has made all of their in-line comments and returns the submission to the student, how is it shown to the student? In the HTML editor? Or rendered on the page? The latter seems more logical, unless resubmissions are allowed.

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

I have not utilized the "Workshop Module" that much. I really really like the Rubric in it for grading. Wish that form of grading could be attached to any activity. Hint Hint

Anyway, I think from reviewing the posts that there are many folks who remove the Workshop Mod because of memory problems. They may use the "Exercise Module" instead. I dunno! Would this affect you thinking about not supporting the Exercise Mod any more?

Re: Workshop Module version 2004092400 - In-line submissions

Yes, it took a little time to get into Rubrics but now I've used them pretty successfully in several assignments. They appear to be very popular in the States.

The memory problem with Workshop is an old issue now. The lib file was very large and it was split a little time ago now. Although I must say that in the later versions of the module it has grown again. Something to watch I think...